Leading life’s Way

Catholics should be universally grateful for Pope Leo XIV’s condemnation of capital punishment in the wake of a horribly botched execution in Tennessee followed by the U.S. Secretary of Defence vowing to live stream a firing squad.

The Pontiff made headlines Oct. 10 with a tweet on X dismantling the arguments that seek to justify the State dealing death to convicted criminals. Such arguments fail the logic of both human rights and legitimate alternatives, he said in the post hash tagged #NoDeathPenalty.

The death penalty is also an affront to Christian faith, the Holy Father wrote, because its very nature subverts Christ’s promise of redemption.

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 “(It) is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” he said. “The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.”

Far from theological novelty, Pope Leo’s message was a renewal of St. John Paul II’s condemnation several decades ago. Yet they attracted media and public attention in part because they were timed for World Day Against the Death Penalty, in part because the topic is such a live one due to the excruciating “survival” of death row inmate Christa Pike and the revolting fulminations of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Pike, 50, was left in critical condition Sept. 30 after two attempts to execute her by lethal injection failed. Hegseth, meanwhile, shocked even his battle-hardened subordinates in the U.S Army by announcing the firing squad killing of terrorist Nidal Hassan will be livestreamed for public viewing on Dec. 3.

Canadians, Catholic and non-Catholic, can at least feel a mixture of relief and gratitude that capital punishment for civilians was formally abolished 50 years ago and for the military 30 years ago. There has not been a civilian execution in Canada since 1962. Even an attempt to bring back the death penalty failed in the House of Commons in 1987. 

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Yet we must not let either response lure us into the moralism of smugness so long as we allow death to be delivered by the State merely for the “failing” of becoming ill. Acceptance of the beige sounding acronym MAiD for medical aid in dying (formerly known as mercy killing) cannot blind us to the similarities of procedures on the death rows of American prisons and in the death wards of our own hospitals.

The likeness was brilliantly brought to light recently by American satirist Nellie Bowles writing in The Free Press. Commenting on the Christa Pike catastrophe, Bowles wondered if “all the Canadian doctors were too busy” to show bungling Tennessee executioners how to do their jobs properly.

“Christa Pike is receiving life-saving medical care so that…the State can potentially try to kill her again. Professionally, this time,” Bowles wrote. “My question is this: Canadian doctors are executing people constantly (sorry, performing medical assistance in dying), and it seems to have a 100 per cent successful death rate. They do it with IVs, too. Have we called any of them to help?”

The wit bites – and leaves painful marks of truth behind.

Any salve we seek should not be for soothing our consciences but rather, as Father Kevin Belgrave says, for preparing to create a countercultural response to what is ultimately our fear-driven confusion about the reality of death itself. And as Fr. Belgrave told the Register’s Luke Mandato, Christ’s Church is ideally placed to help foster that culture shift.

“It’s incumbent on us as the Church to do all that we can to help form a counterculture; one that would live the realities of preparation for facing death evermore faithfully and with hope,” he said in an interview.”

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“ There are multiple elements to a Catholic response to this desire for euthanasia and MAiD. Some of those elements involve how we accompany people as they grow old and are sick or suffering, but another element is a broader renewal of a culture that takes care of each other,” he added. 

Thinking through that response is the focus of a discussion series on end-of-life decisions to be held under Fr. Belgrave’s leadership this month at St. Augustine’s seminary. There’s comfort in that kind of leadership on life radiating through the Church outward from Pope Leo and inward to Catholic hearts where the Way, the Truth and the Life endure world without end. 

A version of this article appeared in the October 18, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Leading life’s Way".